No Nukes -- and that's Northrop Grumman talking

Not everyone agrees with Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), ranking minority member of the House Seapower Committee, that the Navy's planned CG-X -- the all-missile-armed derivative of the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer -- should run on nuclear energy. In a conversation at the Navy League show last week, a self-described "dumb ship driver" and business-development executive at Northrop Grumman pointed out that it's a great deal more than just pulling out turbines and dropping in a nuke. Old enough to have served on steam-powered vessels, the official pointed out that a nuclear powered ship is also a steam-powered ship, with all the fun and games -- high pressure, leaks and corrosion -- inherent to such beasts. It is not, he says, just a matter of first cost -- only on aircraft carriers, with their enormous appetite for jet and marine fuel, does the nuclear option pay off. "When I got my first gas-turbine ship I said I'd never go back again," he told DTI.

Big radar, no primary guns and long-range missiles distinguish CG(X) from the DDG-1000, the cruiser giving up the fire-support mission in favor of anti-missile defense. A deckhouse built on a square rather than hexagonal floorplan accommodates even larger radar billboards -- to detect stealthier targets at longer range -- and the space occupied by the DDG-1000's dual 155 mm guns accommodates a modular array of launch tubes. Using cold gas to eject missiles, like a submarine, the launch tubes could accommodate intermediate-range strike missiles or full-size anti-missile weapons up to 40 inches in diameter. Eliminating the complex hot-gas venting that is needed around today's missile tubes makes it possible to pack weapons more tightly and change missile fits at dockside.

--Bill Sweetman

(Photo credit: Rolls-Royce)

Comments

[tps]

They could try using gas cooled, pebble bed reactor. If they use helium for the coolent that would remove both steam legs of the reactor because that can be routed directly through the turbines. Adams Atmic Engines has some interesting ideas. http://www.atomicengines.com/

[Peter]

Has anyone thought about the consequences of naval nuclear ships in combat, getting sunk or damaged ?

The smaller CG(X) may be involved in operations that expose it to damage or sinking much more so than a carrier.

As nuclear propulsion spreads thought out a fleet, the consequences of the sinking or damage of these ships, may outweigh the consequences winning or losing of a battle.

[Bigfoot]

Peter's got a point. The US hasn't put nuclear propulsion in a surface ship smaller than a carrier in forty years. We seem to have definitely taken a step back from that. One wonders if the accident on the Forrestal, and the Belknap getting clipped had something to do with that.